There will soon be a new bus rolling into Stevensville.
In order to provide Stevensville residents with access to the new intermunicipal transit service to Niagara Falls, the conventional transit schedule has been altered to add a bus to pick up riders at Stevensville Community Centre at 7 a.m. and arrive at Wal-Mart on Garrison Road at 7:51 a.m. Niagara Falls Transit has been contracted to pick up riders at Wal-Mart and transport them to Niagara Falls.
Fort Erie riders will pay $3.75 to board the bus in Fort Erie and transfer onto Niagara Falls Transit buses free of charge. The service, which is intended to provide a transportation link for Fort Erie residents to get to Niagara College, Brock University and places of employment around the region, will operate to and from Niagara Falls from Monday to Friday hourly between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. The service will operate on a trial basis from September 2 to April 30. http://www.niagarathisweek.com/news/commun.../article/198809
Stuck on the QEW…on a Sunday? That`s Oakville traffic for you.
However, the Ministry of Transportation Ontario (MTO) is hoping to alleviate the pressure of the constant traffic on the QEW through Halton Region by expanding the present six lanes to a more comfortable eight lanes.
You may have noticed the construction.
The QEW through Halton Region is a major artery for commuters who work in the GTA and for commercial traffic between Toronto and the United States. Oakville residents are all too familiar with the kind of congestion those two factors can create through their town.
The Town of Oakville is partnering with Petro-Canada to link South Shell Waterfront Park into the Petro-Canada lands to create a 3.3 hectare park that will span about 800 metres of prime waterfront.
"We`re thrilled that Petro-Canada has granted us right of access to their waterfront parkette," Mayor Rob Burton said. "The ability to connect public land with private land allows us to continue to build a seamless and continuous lakeside park with better connectivity and enhanced public access."
Construction of the city`s new public square is hurting business in the Shops of Waterloo Town Square, with some retailers saying sales are down 40 per cent.
Business owners in the square say traffic is dwindling and they have had to cut back on employees and operating hours.
Many have been opposed to the city building the public park in front of the mall for years, and now their worst fears are coming true, said Liz Rogers, owner of Lizzy R Fashions.
Businesses have had huge losses in sales, many between 30 and 40 per cent, Rogers said,
OTTAWA -- The battered manufacturing sector is seeing some relief from new orders and a weakening loonie, but the faltering U.S. economy means an actual turnaround is at least a year away, economists said yesterday.
Statistics Canada reported a 2.1% monthly increase in manufacturers` sales for June to $52.5 billion, with much of the increase powered by rising prices. It was the fifth increase in six months. Paul Ferley, assistant chief economist at the Royal Bank, called the data encouraging, saying it "bodes well for overall GDP (gross domestic product) growth in June returning to positive growth after the disappointing 0.1% drop in May."
It was a disaster from the moment we opened the door. The kitchen cabinets, which were supposed to be sage-green, were beige.
"I had planned my entire design scheme around the cabinets," says Brenda Burns, the devastated owner of a brand new 1,300-square-foot suite in midtown.
This was not exactly the welcome to condo living these downsizing boomers had hoped for. Burns and her husband Murray Eldon have been living the white-picket-fence idyll for nearly 40 years, raising her two sons (now grown) and tending his tomatoes in the garden (he makes a mean pasta sauce). Neither had lived in anything resembling an apartment since their dorm days. They were suitably nervous about packing up or disposing of all the amassed belongings in their Forest Hill home and entering the world of compact vertical living.
The residual income from owning rental properties may bring more money into your life than the fast flip in the long term. If nothing else, the stress is reduced because a well-chosen investment will pay for itself until the market is ready for you to sell. In order to make this idea work, you must plan carefully. To make the most of your investment, choose your property, choose your tenants carefully and choose your management approach.
With 7,806 transactions recorded last month, the Greater Toronto Area resale housing market continued at a moderate pace in July.
It is important to note that in this column I will reference market numbers specific to the resale housing activity of 2006 and 2007. This is due to the record-setting activity recorded in 2007. This comparison is provided to help present a more accurate perspective of the resale housing market of 2008.
In 2008, the Toronto Real Estate Board`s (TREB) market report shows that prices remained stable throughout the GTA in July. At $371,427, the average price increased slightly more than 1% from the $366,012 recorded in July 2007 and 9% from the $342,034 figure of 2006.
The City of Toronto is taking over the cleanup of a north Toronto neighbourhood hit by a massive explosion last Sunday as crews continue to test the area`s air for harmful asbestos.
The city expects to have between 100 and 120 workers cleaning up asbestos and other debris from the Sunrise Propane blast today, Acting Deputy Mayor Shelley Carroll announced at a news conference last night.
"The city is anxious to begin this work (today)," Carroll said. "We hope people understand there will be a great deal of professionals in the area and they need to be given all the room and clearance they can to get on with the work and complete it as soon as possible."
Door-to-door energy sellers target rivals` clients
There`s a new trend in the complaints I get about door-to-door sales of gas and electricity. Energy retailers are targeting clients of other energy retailers.
They`re urging them to break contracts and sign new ones – without mentioning the stiff penalties that can result.
Jennifer Thomas, a new mother, was bathing her baby last April when a Direct Energy sales agent came to her door.
"I said I did not want to sign anything and be locked in and he said, `please sign so we can call you,` " she says.
Later, she got a call from Ontario Energy Savings, asking if she wanted to switch. She didn`t realize she was already under contract.
Sales of energy-saving geothermal systems that heat and cool buildings are booming in Ontario, thanks to generous government incentives and concern over rising fuel and electricity prices.
But an industry association is warning homeowners and municipal governments to beware, this fall season, of fly-by-night contractors who falsely claim they`re qualified to do installations.
The systems – also known as ground-source heat pumps, earth energy, or geoexchange systems – harness energy that lies naturally in the ground, reducing fossil fuel or electricity use.
Blaming a slowdown in the use of studio production facilities, CanWest MediaWorks Inc. is exiting one of their main television and film sites in Toronto.
The Cinevillage studio on Heward Ave. produced many popular CanWest productions such as The Mom Show and House and Home on HGTV. The facility also produced content for History Television, Discovery Health Channel and was once the site for the set of the Traders television series.
"Studio production has decreased in popularity and as a result, Cinevillage is very underutilized," said Chris McGinley, senior vice-president of operations at CanWest in an internal memo to employees this week. "In addition, CanWest owns and operates existing studio space that can be used for production of this nature."
The soaring cost of oil is not only squeezing us at the pumps, it has also doubled the cost of asphalt in the last two years, making it costly to resurface the driveway .
Stefan Barth hit on a better idea when he found yet another ticket on his car after he`d parked on the street at his Oakville townhome.
"I thought `This is nuts,`" says the cutting tool importer. "I only have room for one car and I can`t park on the grass because it damages it and I`m getting tickets."
Just the views alone are enough to sell seven unique coach houses to be built on an almost forgotten infill site in Caledon East.
The houses, with prices starting at $650,000, are at the end of of a quiet street in a long established subdivision and will be built into the side of hill. This will provide owners with unobstructed views of the Caledon Hills to the north from the main living areas.
Norman Ave. is a two-block long street near St. Clair Ave. W., and Lansdowne Ave. Number 16A is a small row house that recently became the subject of an apparent mortgage fraud case in Ontario Superior Court. A title search of the property shows that it was sold to Winchester Financial Corporation in November 2004, for $153,500. Just four months later it was "flipped" to Danny Meneses at the inflated price of $299,000, almost double the original cost. National Bank provided Meneses with high ratio financing of $293,230. The mortgage was guaranteed by Oldemiro Demeneses.
Opening salvos have been fired in a fight over who will pay to raze an aging London hospital along a coveted stretch of the Thames River.
City politicians and managers are eyeing the site, one of the city`s hottest for redevelopment and near downtown, as South Street Hospital inches closer to demolition. But a battle over who will pay to demolish the old and possibly asbestos-filled hospital buildings -- expected to cost millions -- has also begun, with the city and the province saying it`s not their responsibility.
A Crystal Beach man has been fined by Ontario`s housing regulator for illegally building and selling a home in St. Catharines.
Last month, Lino Innocente was fined more than $10,000 for attempting to sell a home he had built at 3 Cherry St.
Dave Roberts, director of enforcement at Tarion Warranty Corp., the company charged by the province to be Ontario`s regulator, said Innocente had built the house and stipulated his intention was to live in it.
"Which is fine," Roberts said. "If you build a house with the intent of living in it, you can do that. And if you have had a bona fide occupancy, everything is fine; you can sell it."
It`s probably Niagara`s most fertile fantasyland, complete with legendary witch.
Margaret Reed, the so-called Witch of Cave Springs, spent 35 years protecting her beautiful Beamsville escarpment home, and its folklore.
Ice caves, sculptures carved into cliff rock and Carolinian forest formed the perfect landscape for stories of buried treasure, German spies and magical salt springs.
Reed, who told school kids she was 300 years old -- thanks to the escarpment springwater -- died in 2005 at the real-world age of 86.
The Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority has spent the last few years searching for a way to make the property public, but protected.
City plans to help students, residents peacefully coexist
They`re almost here.
In the next two weeks, Barrie`s east end will be buzzing with college students and their parents slugging boxes into dorm rooms and rental properties before courses at Georgian College begin.
In the past, this has signalled the start of a frustrating year for residents coping with party-crazed college students.
But Coun. Mike Ramsay says plans are in place to make student life more neighbourly.
"Things were getting way out of hand and I had people calling and literally screaming at me to do something," Ramsay said. "We want to encourage a safe and proper integration of college students into the community.
It`s a sweet, shocker of a deal. City residents could see a 6.5 per
cent cut to their electricity rates, and a $25.7-million hike in dividends during the next decade, if Barrie Hydro merges with PowerStream.
Barrie councillors will hear two presentations Monday on the proposal. They will also consider a motion to seek public input on the deal by Sept. 8, and begin the process of approving, or denying, the merger.
But Coun. Mike Ramsay, who also sits on Barrie Hydro`s board of directors, says the merger deal looks too good to be true for a reason.
"On paper, it looks attractive," he said. "But that is basing your pure faith on the numbers. There are no guarantees.
